Respiration and Heterotrophs

1. Respiration uses glucose more efficiently. It further processes the glucose throughout the Kreb cycle and glycolysis, making about 18 times as many ATP molecules as fermentation. Anaerobic fermentation stops short of these processes, and leaves the remainder as a wasted product. This wasted product contains obtainable, but unused, energy.2. An energy source. The most important parts of a cell’s energy production of glucose and oxygen. There are additional ways to extract energy out of sunlight for plants called photosynthesis and other active metabolic processes for other organisms which eat. Plants use carbon dioxide, water and light to form glucose. Both of the aforementioned use ATP- the universal end product for readily available energy.Humans are heterotrophs- we depend on organic material. Autotrophs can either be dependent on sunlight for an energy source or inorganic chemicals.3. Competitive inhibitors are substrates that fit into the active sites of the enzyme and block its mechanism of action. Conversely, if the active site has already been filled with an excess of the non-inhibitive substrate, the competitive inhibition will be ineffective.Non-competitive inhibition uses substrates that do not fit in the active sites of the enzyme but still inhibits the correct substrate. It does this by attacking the allosteric site, or an alternative site to the active site. This mechanism inhibits the function of the enzyme by potentially changing the size of the active site.4. Growth of an individual cell can be limited to increasing its size. For survival, replication must occur. There are four phases in a cells replication: lag phase, log phase, survival and death. The first two are associated with growth. The lag phase is anabolically preparing for maximum reproduction as well as growth. The log phase is the maximum rate of cell division.